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JimmyWolf87 wrote:

 Just Tony wrote:
I'm amazed at how conditioned most of the player base is at rebuying things they've already got. Pavlov would be proud.

Personally it's more a case of wanting to buy things for the first time that are no longer in active production. Much as ol' GW's pricing can be extortionate or baffling (or both) at times, it's still generally better than second hand.

And there's a difference between the expectation of simply putting kits back into production and redesigning and tooling up molds for 16 factions or so to launch a game. The general GW customer mindset nowadays would be the latter.

Overread wrote:

 Just Tony wrote:
I'm amazed at how conditioned most of the player base is at rebuying things they've already got. Pavlov would be proud.

You mean buying new models with new sculpts and poses and details and refinements?
Or adding to existing collections with the same models
Or getting new models and building them to a higher standard after 10years of hobbying (at the very least).


I mean yeah of course many are going to choose to upgrade, model building and painting is PART of the hobby. Otherwise we'd be using square bits of cardboard on the table.

Why is all that mutually exclusive? Them rereleasing older models so people who weren't around to get them the first time can start an army doesn't conflict with making new units for existing armies or what I will assume will be Cathay and Kislev forces out the gate.

My deal is that my armies have monopose WHQ/Talisman/4th Ed. plastic models in them, and once painted up don't stick out NEARLY as much as the "NeW mOdElS eVeRy SiX mOnThS!!!!!1!!!!@!!!" crowd would have you believe. Basically it's the iPhone marketing mentality at work here. Replace your essentially brand-new thing with this brand-newer thing that is only marginally different but new.



And why does everyone rule out the possibility that people may actually get a second/third/tenth army during this time?

Paymaster Games wrote:

 Just Tony wrote:
I'm amazed at how conditioned most of the player base is at rebuying things they've already got. Pavlov would be proud.

I have the feeling that some of these players ditched their armies soon after 8th edition went belly up and now has to rebuild.

While there will be some new plastic kits, they will not be many to start. New Plastic kits are expensive to make compared to metal and resin kits. I would expect a full re-release of several plastic kits for nearly every line, with one or two kits new plastic kits for new units or center pieces, like the War Wagon. To make everything available from the start, i would not be surprised if metal or, gods forbid, finecast models be made available via mail order because of how cheap it is to run these models.

As to completely new models for whole armies, other than the new armies of Kislev and Cathey, i do not see this happening at all. Mostly because they have not done this with AoS, Cities of Sigmar, Lizardmen, Chaos, and Greenkins still use allot of the old kits. Expectations on new models needs to tempered.

Some probably purged. Others, like my niece and some of the posters at classichammer are new players brought in by TW:WH or exposure to the fiction. They'll be starting from scratch as well, and basically reissuing the old Battalion sets would be the simplest way to go.

KidCthulhu wrote:

 Just Tony wrote:
I'm amazed at how conditioned most of the player base is at rebuying things they've already got. Pavlov would be proud.

For me, it's not so much buying things I've already got but the opportunity to grab kits I didn't get (and kicked myself for missing out on).

You and me both. You already know I intend to build one of each WFB army, so this would facilitate it without me scouring the aftermarket.

 Overread wrote:
1) The game didn't "work" well until you hit at least 1.5K points for most armies. With many of them being totally broken below 1K points and the game not even really working or being all that engaging at, say, 500points.

2) As the game dwindled in popularity the number of people remaining were those more heavily invested. So they had a 2K army and wanted to use a 2K army and the games you saw would all be 2K armies etc... So newbies had a huge hill to climb to join that 2K group (or at least hit the 1.5K group).

3) GW did go overboard with numbers. Skaven are a fantastic example of taking the idea and going just too far. You needed legions of slaves for many ideal forces; which were mostly on the table to die ,but required huge numbers.

I feel the game "didn't work" at say 1k points if you can bring a 250~ point rare monster that is functionally unkillable by a bunch of smallish unspecialised units. Or - perhaps even worse and you can do this with anything - you can have a 500+ point death star that likewise will just walk around the table being invincible. Especially in 8th where you potentially charge it, only for it to fight first and insta-gib your unit.

I feel the answer, which might hurt purists, is in the rules.
Don't facilitate deathstars - have size caps to units. You don't need to allow people to take bricks of 40 White Lions/Grave Guard etc - or even 100 goblins/skaven slaves as 8th edition sort of encouraged. Likewise, having more concretely defined what a unit can look like, you can take a more balanced view on the relative power of monsters and characters (and 6th-8th edition balancing was all over the place because GW never did balance passes back then). At the same time however, I don't think you want to encourage a reversion to 6th-7th Cavalry hammer. I think blocks of infantry should be the "core" of the game. Unsupported Cavalry and Monsters breaking such should be the exception rather than the rule. So I'd keep step up but return to charges striking first. You can then look at Magic without having to factor it as "the counter" to inevitable death stars etc.

There's probably an argument on points to do what's happened in 40k. I.E. bring up the points of cheap models. Goblins/Skaven don't need to be 2-3 points a model, to the point where you can bring hundreds in a 1.5-2k point game. I've got 200+ night goblins at home, so I can sort of relate. But I have no idea how I found the time to paint them all those years ago, its not something I'd ever contemplate doing today.

With these changes Timmy won't walk into a shop and be told he "needs" 40 Halberdiers and 3-4 characters to serve as the base of an Empire army he though might be cool. Which unsurprisingly prompts "that's too much, I'll buy a box of space marines instead."

I guess we'll just have to wait and see.

IIRC in 8th there was a hard counter to deathstars, the magic system

the irony of many event packs mucking with the magic system as it was "overpowered" (and be honest, it was broken to heck), but then having to put in all sorts of other rules as a result

I found the game, if you actually played what was provided worked ok - the point on needing about 2k before it worked well is well made though

Tyel wrote:

 Overread wrote:
1) The game didn't "work" well until you hit at least 1.5K points for most armies. With many of them being totally broken below 1K points and the game not even really working or being all that engaging at, say, 500points.

2) As the game dwindled in popularity the number of people remaining were those more heavily invested. So they had a 2K army and wanted to use a 2K army and the games you saw would all be 2K armies etc... So newbies had a huge hill to climb to join that 2K group (or at least hit the 1.5K group).

3) GW did go overboard with numbers. Skaven are a fantastic example of taking the idea and going just too far. You needed legions of slaves for many ideal forces; which were mostly on the table to die ,but required huge numbers.

I feel the game "didn't work" at say 1k points if you can bring a 250~ point rare monster that is functionally unkillable by a bunch of smallish unspecialised units. Or - perhaps even worse and you can do this with anything - you can have a 500+ point death star that likewise will just walk around the table being invincible. Especially in 8th where you potentially charge it, only for it to fight first and insta-gib your unit.

I feel the answer, which might hurt purists, is in the rules.
Don't facilitate deathstars - have size caps to units. You don't need to allow people to take bricks of 40 White Lions/Grave Guard etc - or even 100 goblins/skaven slaves as 8th edition sort of encouraged. Likewise, having more concretely defined what a unit can look like, you can take a more balanced view on the relative power of monsters and characters (and 6th-8th edition balancing was all over the place because GW never did balance passes back then). At the same time however, I don't think you want to encourage a reversion to 6th-7th Cavalry hammer. I think blocks of infantry should be the "core" of the game. Unsupported Cavalry and Monsters breaking such should be the exception rather than the rule. So I'd keep step up but return to charges striking first. You can then look at Magic without having to factor it as "the counter" to inevitable death stars etc.

There's probably an argument on points to do what's happened in 40k. I.E. bring up the points of cheap models. Goblins/Skaven don't need to be 2-3 points a model, to the point where you can bring hundreds in a 1.5-2k point game. I've got 200+ night goblins at home, so I can sort of relate. But I have no idea how I found the time to paint them all those years ago, its not something I'd ever contemplate doing today.

With these changes Timmy won't walk into a shop and be told he "needs" 40 Halberdiers and 3-4 characters to serve as the base of an Empire army he though might be cool. Which unsurprisingly prompts "that's too much, I'll buy a box of space marines instead."

I guess we'll just have to wait and see.

Agre with a lot of this - have some TW style rock/paper/scossors gameplay - so spear (and similar weapons)s are "anti-cavalry/large" - in reality charging cav into a spear formation, if you could even get the horse to even do it was a a bad idea - now yes we have dinsoaurs and boars in Warhammer as mounts but still applies to a certain degree. same thing with anti-infantry, armour piercing etc.

whatever they do removing "I won in the list building phase" is a must

leopard wrote:
whatever they do removing "I won in the list building phase" is a must

Yes and no

I think the key is that any game with army building is going to have an aspect of understanding how the game works and how to build a working army within that game. If you just spam all 1 unit on the table it might win because of min-max but it might also lose because it lacks a lot of tools and options that a more comprehensive list brings.

So basically I think that list building should always be important



AT the same time I agree that the game balance should ideally be where tweaking the list brings minor advantage not major advantage. So when you put a good and a decent list down against each other the difference in mathematical performance is minor. You gain little advantages here and there and the REAL test is how you use it on the table. The player's choices, actions and contribution to the game.
This is something that escapes GW entirely balance wise. GW tends to lean toward powerful cinematic combos (either intentionally or by missing them entirely during design). Then countering that with either tougher units, more units or making even more powerful combos against it. The result is an arms race codex to codex which fails because we only get 1 codex per edition typically (sometimes two but its rare). So you only get 1 arms race per faction.

There are also those who defend this because they like the idea of finding the "I win" list. Or (often) copying it from online. They like the idea that they can buy the BEST army and win. They dislike the idea of minor power variation because to them that means they don't have an I win button to press. They don't have a simple single list to use; they don't have a clear way to victory.




I liken it to Magic the Gathering which 100% has very insane power variations between decks. MTG gets away with this in part because
1) Matches are fast. You can complete several games of MTG in the time it takes to just setup a 40K game.
2) The rules are tight. Yes the combos are insane, but the underlaying rules are generally very straight forward and tightly put together and they are regularly revised to that standard.
3) The cards cost nothing to make function. You open the pack and the card works - you don't have to clean it, build it, prime it, paint it.

If you try and bring all that into a wargame it fails because many people only have one or two armies; they don't want to build the newest power army and they can't even afford it - not just in money but in time as well.
So they have their army and if GW makes their army perform badly mathematically and makes another army perform WAY better mathematically, then that's a power struggle the player cannot overcome. It takes the player out of the equation and makes the list building the most important aspect.

my thinking is not that list building skilfully should not be rewarded, it certainly should be, but far too often it seemed that the actual game was pretty pointless

yes you need a chance to make a mistake but far too often it was basically "ha ha you lose"

comes down to stuff needing to be able to be closer in lethality or more rock-paper-scissors where everything has a weakness every faction can exploit - rewarding a flexible army

I have an entire 5th ed starter box stuffed with 5th ed Brets, metal infantry, plastic archers and knights, all the old models. I'll be happy to be able to break them out and paint them up and field them.

That being said, my experience in that 5th ed+ era was also that armies often won not only at list building, but at army set up. Set up a unit in a bad spot, or your army, and you lost. Reforming an army line was not something that was easy to do.

I actually enjoyed AoS when it first came out with my Brets, the unit sizes felt good, the army "flowed" as a cavalry army would, without the 'must be in a wedge or box formation' and we played many thematic battles (against my friend's orcs).

So I'd be happy with something more along the lines of AsoIaF style movement and play, being able to move units, and redeploy, without all of the gotcha stuff that sideboards, special characters with abilities, strategems, CCG like mechanics, and other nonsense brings.

Heck, even bringing some of the ideas and implementations from Warhammer Historical (countercharges, etc.) wouldn't be out of place, they'd just have to figure out how to balance the magical and monster elements.

All that being said, I'd also likely play with whatever base rules (hopefully a Ravening Hordes style army list) because GW won't be able to keep my attention with whatever comes out after.

have to say the one thing I really didn't like about WHFB was how the safest place for a character to stand was generally alongside an enemy unit where they were impossible to charge

Yeah, there needs to be some sort of 'move into combat' to prevent such shenanigans, instead of the obsession with always charging forward

Overread wrote:
IT also helps that functionally both 40K and AoS are "skirmish movement" style games rather than big block styles.

This would help in larger games?

But in general Old World is also going to be another 30K; so GW is already thinking of it as a niche.

Honestly that might be to it's advantage, in a way. Less reliance on it being a big moneyspinner might mean less foisting of rules churn and built-in imbalance on it.

Tyel wrote:Don't facilitate deathstars - have size caps to units. You don't need to allow people to take bricks of 40 White Lions/Grave Guard etc - or even 100 goblins/skaven slaves as 8th edition sort of encouraged.

Scratch the 25mm bases - every unit on a 100mm square.

Mr Morden wrote:Agre with a lot of this - have some TW style rock/paper/scossors gameplay - so spear (and similar weapons)s are "anti-cavalry/large"

This is every other rank 'n' flank game. Did WFB end up with nothing like that, at the end?

 Vermis wrote:

Overread wrote:
IT also helps that functionally both 40K and AoS are "skirmish movement" style games rather than big block styles.

This would help in larger games?

It helps when you want to have the same core rules system and style of play spread out over many scales of game.

When you take a movement tray game down to only 10 or 15 models per side you almost have to use an entirely different movement system. You don't have rank and file any more unless you go for one model on a movement tray of the size of a larger number of models.

So when you've a skirmish movement system you can maintain the same style of play over a wider range of numbers of models per side. Killteam to 40K at 2K uses similar movement systems. Same as when you go into AoS and you have Warcry or you go from 500 to 1000 to 1500 to 2K games. Maintaining the same style of play and tweaking it for the different scale of the game means that players get a similar experience, just with more.

However to do the same with movement trays is trickier and we are back to "it doesn't really work below 1.5K" type situations. Certainly visually you can't get the same experience of rank and file with 1 model on a movement tray type deal.


So yes being Skirmish style in movement helps scale the game size whilst maintaining a similar style of play.
I do agree once you hit 2K points nad armies like Tyranids or Skaven, movement trays can suddenly start to become really attractive. At the same time you have to change how the game works to make them work - AoS has no such system whilst 40K does at least have Apoc style rules.

There is justification to consider adding movement tray movement into 2K scale games, but you also have to accept that as soon as you do that the style of game changes. Terrain density has to change and its shape and type also has to change to facilitate rank and file movement; the way you treat infantry changes etc...

 Overread wrote:

 Vermis wrote:

Overread wrote:
IT also helps that functionally both 40K and AoS are "skirmish movement" style games rather than big block styles.

This would help in larger games?

It helps when you want to have the same core rules system and style of play spread out over many scales of game.

When you take a movement tray game down to only 10 or 15 models per side you almost have to use an entirely different movement system. You don't have rank and file any more unless you go for one model on a movement tray of the size of a larger number of models.

So when you've a skirmish movement system you can maintain the same style of play over a wider range of numbers of models per side. Killteam to 40K at 2K uses similar movement systems. Same as when you go into AoS and you have Warcry or you go from 500 to 1000 to 1500 to 2K games. Maintaining the same style of play and tweaking it for the different scale of the game means that players get a similar experience, just with more.

However to do the same with movement trays is trickier and we are back to "it doesn't really work below 1.5K" type situations. Certainly visually you can't get the same experience of rank and file with 1 model on a movement tray type deal.


So yes being Skirmish style in movement helps scale the game size whilst maintaining a similar style of play.
I do agree once you hit 2K points nad armies like Tyranids or Skaven, movement trays can suddenly start to become really attractive. At the same time you have to change how the game works to make them work - AoS has no such system whilst 40K does at least have Apoc style rules.

There is justification to consider adding movement tray movement into 2K scale games, but you also have to accept that as soon as you do that the style of game changes. Terrain density has to change and its shape and type also has to change to facilitate rank and file movement; the way you treat infantry changes etc...

We played 6th Ed. at 1,000 points quite often and had no issues, so your suggestion that it doesn't work below 1.5K is nowhere near true unless you're focusing on 8th, which, in my humble opinion, didn't work at higher point levels either.

Even Border Patrols at 500pts were nice games. We had quite a few match-rematch (play each opponent twice, switching armies in the secod game) in Poland using those, and those were always pipular event (with the exception of powergamers who didn't want to admit their results were from broken armies, not gameplay skill so they usually skipped those )

1000 pts at 6th edition were great fun.

A hero & a wizard. Three troops. A cav unit and a war machine. Leaves enough points for a rare or some flanker.

I just wonder if Old world will follow 6th or 7th comp style. Picks or percentages. Kind of hope for picks due to avoiding msu and making list building easier.

I also feel we might get what Saint Stillman feared years ago, 12 armies with different flavor of monstrous infantry, monstrous cavalry, a war altar on wheels and some great weapon special infantry. No real diversity. Perhaps dwarves, skaven and undead will keep their gimmicks. Not really against it, just a vibe I get from the developers diaries they keep releasingm but then again, I've been reading alot of warhammer armies projects lately, and they are very formulaic.

Hope weapon teams remains a thing.

It would be nice if TOW is a lot more like 6th. I keep trying to get my Oldhammer friends to go back to 6th, but they like some of crazier aspects of 8th that I'm not a fan of.

Well, WFB ended for me with 7th. Random charges was the one single thing that made me drop the game.

 KidCthulhu wrote:
It would be nice if TOW is a lot more like 6th. I keep trying to get my Oldhammer friends to go back to 6th, but they like some of crazier aspects of 8th that I'm not a fan of.

What, specifically, if I may ask?

 Scottywan82 wrote:
What, specifically, if I may ask?

Specifically? My biggest gripe would have to be the scale/size of the games itself.

Many of my models individually got increasingly worse stats but a drop in points as a transparent cash grab to sell more models.
"Yeah, they suck now but they cost less points so you can field twice as many!"

I shouldn't have to run a unit of 50 models when two editions ago, 20 models were just as effective.I'm also not a fan of the Hordes rule.

I also don't like how my group runs a Lord in 1500 point games and that if I don't take a Lv4 wizard, I basically "lose" the Magic Phase.
Yes, I know that's more of an issue with my group than anything, but the ruleset allows for that playing.

I just miss when I could run a few blocks of infantry, a wizard or two, maybe some cavalry, and have an enjoyable time where the battles were evenly matched (and not hideously one-sided battles punctuated by wargear "gotchas").

So if the scale of the battles for TOW are more like 5th or 6th than 8th, I'll be very happy.

 KidCthulhu wrote:

 Scottywan82 wrote:
What, specifically, if I may ask?

Specifically? My biggest gripe would have to be the scale/size of the games itself.

Many of my models individually got increasingly worse stats but a drop in points as a transparent cash grab to sell more models.
"Yeah, they suck now but they cost less points so you can field twice as many!"

I shouldn't have to run a unit of 50 models when two editions ago, 20 models were just as effective.I'm also not a fan of the Hordes rule.

I also don't like how my group runs a Lord in 1500 point games and that if I don't take a Lv4 wizard, I basically "lose" the Magic Phase.
Yes, I know that's more of an issue with my group than anything, but the ruleset allows for that playing.

I just miss when I could run a few blocks of infantry, a wizard or two, maybe some cavalry, and have an enjoyable time where the battles were evenly matched (and not hideously one-sided battles punctuated by wargear "gotchas").

So if the scale of the battles for TOW are more like 5th or 6th than 8th, I'll be very happy.

That all makes a lot of sense! Thanks for the reply.

 Overread wrote:

It helps when you want to have the same core rules system and style of play spread out over many scales of game.

When you take a movement tray game down to only 10 or 15 models per side you almost have to use an entirely different movement system.

If you take WFB down to 10-15 models per side I would say you have to use an entirely different game. But isn't that what Mordheim achieved, or even the skirmish rules in the back of the 6th ed book?

Killteam to 40K at 2K uses similar movement systems.

But aren't these treated as different games, too?

I used to think that having core infantry in blocks of 10/15 was a bit stupid (spot the 8th Ed player huh) but if you accept each model as an abstract larger number of soldiers then it's fine. So I've come around to lower model counts for a rank and file game.

So do we all agree the ARISE! emphasis in the Tomb Kings article is just a nod to the Total Warhammer voice lines, and not a gameplay hint?

 RustyNumber wrote:
I used to think that having core infantry in blocks of 10/15 was a bit stupid (spot the 8th Ed player huh) but if you accept each model as an abstract larger number of soldiers then it's fine. So I've come around to lower model counts for a rank and file game.

Rank and file games with low model counts simply look silly on the table and in game mechanics (having movement maneuvers like in old battle for a line of 4 infantry models is stupid - people don't move like trucks in small numbers). Better play smaller scale with multiple models like in 15-10-6mm on a single base in that case, it gives a better look for the mass battles they're supposed to represent. And it's cheaper too.

So do we all agree the ARISE! emphasis in the Tomb Kings article is just a nod to the Total Warhammer voice lines, and not a gameplay hint?

Pretty much. It's useless to give hints for gameplays when it's not even revealed / set in stone, anyway.

for grand strategic games it does not really matter if it is 28mm or 15/10mm

if there are 24 models in a unit that represents 500 soldiers, or 80 models does not make a big difference
neither looks like 500 soldiers, both take the same space on the table and painting is not easier (just different)

it is simply just why what you are used to or not
hence the 16 model minimum unit in Warhammer 6th was still good as a "regiment" and the armies looked impressive

going with larger units always made it look less impressive on the "army" scale for me (hence I neither liked the gameplay nor the look of 8th Edition)

 RustyNumber wrote:
So do we all agree the ARISE! emphasis in the Tomb Kings article is just a nod to the Total Warhammer voice lines, and not a gameplay hint?

It might be a hint. When the army book got cruddaced in 8th ed reanimation was changed from the spell Djedra's Incantation of Summoning to a passive effect attached to all buff spells in the new Lore of Nehekhara. It's conceivable that they keep that summoning mechanic and rename it from The Restless Dead to Arise!

Certainly makes more sense than calling a spell Incantation of Arise! and might serve to keep Vampire and Tomb Kings mechanics separate, with the former getting dedicated mass summoning spells and the latter small scale healing attached to buff spells.

I don't remember that to work very well in 8th, but who knows, Tomb Kings being worse than Vampire Counts is a tradition after all. Might be worth keeping as far as the rules writers are concerned.

 kodos wrote:
for grand strategic games it does not really matter if it is 28mm or 15/10mm

if there are 24 models in a unit that represents 500 soldiers, or 80 models does not make a big difference
neither looks like 500 soldiers, both take the same space on the table and painting is not easier (just different)

it is simply just why what you are used to or not
hence the 16 model minimum unit in Warhammer 6th was still good as a "regiment" and the armies looked impressive

going with larger units always made it look less impressive on the "army" scale for me (hence I neither liked the gameplay nor the look of 8th Edition)

It doesn't matter simply if your focus is on the game and not how it looks on the table. For you can also use papercraft or tokens to play the battle as well, and it will do the exact same job. Will be looking ugly on pictures, but hey if that's not the focus or you don't intend to take any, why bother.

and if 24 models in a unit look ugly this is on you and not something that generally applies to all

having an army of several equal sized units looks better for me than just 2 larger units several and small attachments

and it does not look much different if this is 15 or 28mm on the unit level
15mm looks better if you can get more units on the table, hence when the units decrease in size as well

 kodos wrote:
and if 24 models in a unit look ugly this is on you and not something that generally applies to all

Oh no, it looks fine to me. But the original post I was reacting to was not about 24.

I was just talking about low model counts in rank-and-file game systems. And I mean low, like the number of Mordheim-like skirmish games. Those look non-sensical, to me and the "one model actually represent a hundred" is just sounding like an excuse for something else, to me.

I mean, if being cheap is a matter, better go the full way like papercraft and not even bother with models at all. Your wallet will thank you even more.

he mentioned 10/15 models per block, which was the numbers used during 6th as the minimum "mass" infantry was 16 and most elites used units of 10 or 12

also 10 to 15 models is not uncommon in other R&F games, specially for light infantry formations or more dynamic models
(there are some nice Napoleonic Battalions out there with 10-15 models in running/attack poses)

and no, no one will play and R&F game with 15 models total in an army

 kodos wrote:
he mentioned 10/15 models per block, which was the numbers used during 6th as the minimum "mass" infantry was 16 and most elites used units of 10 or 12

also 10 to 15 models is not uncommon in other R&F games, specially for light infantry formations or more dynamic models
(there are some nice Napoleonic Battalions out there with 10-15 models in running/attack poses)

and no, no one will play and R&F game with 15 models total in an army

Yes, for some specific infantry formations like light infantry / skirmishers, it's fine. Not whole armies only made of them all the time, it then looks silly. You don't see historic games made only of blocks of 10-15, because that would be silly and not representative of the historic battles. That is the point.

At this level, you play a skirmish game. Better use skirmish rules than rank-and-file, then. Like AoS, it works great at that level.

But that's just my point of view, granted. I feel like moving from 6th edition MSU was a good thing for Battle at that time.


I mean, you can criticize 8th edition for a lot of things and the predominence of hordes, but at least that version was encouraging you to make big formations. Older rule versions had always the feeling that if you dared to make a big horde formation, you'll only get crushed by smaller numbers simply because you had too many disadvantages for benefits in the rules. That was something I like in 8th...and it was frankly visually more impressive than a game with only blocks of 10-15 infantry or 5 cavalry buzzing around on the table, like a sad representation of a small skirmish instead of an epic battle.